Sheppard Airmen faces second court-martial

2014-04-09T20:36:10Z2014-04-15T15:18:53Z

SHEPPARD
AIR FORCE BASE, Texas_A Sheppard Airman facing his second court-martial related
to sex charges was convicted of two sex offenses and exonerated of a third
charge during a general court martial hearing April 3 and will serve 15 more
years in federal prison as a result.

Airman
Basic Elis M. LaSalle, 364th Training Squadron, was found guilty of one charge
of aggravated sexual assault and pleaded guilty to one count of knowingly
attempting to persuade a child who had not reached the age of 18 in illegal
sexual activity.

He was
also found not guilty of one count of extortion.

For his
actions, LaSalle was sentenced to 15 years confinement to add to the current
28-month prison sentence he is already serving, as well as a dishonorable
discharge.

LaSalle
was returned to Sheppard from the Naval Consolidated Brig Miramar, San Diego, where he was
already jail time after a previous court-martial conviction for crimes
committed against children.

For this trial,
LaSalle was charged with three separate violations of the Uniformed Code of
Military Justice (UCMJ); first, he was charged with violating Article 120, rape
by force, for using strength sufficient that she could not avoid or escape the
sexual act; Article 127, extortion by attempting to conceal the sexual assault
act with threats unless the victim maintained the pretense of a consensual
romantic relationship; and Article 134 for knowingly attempting to persuade a
child who had not reached the age of 18 to engage in illegal sexual activity.

LaSalle
pleaded "not guilty" to the first two charges and "guilty"
to the Article 134 charge.

On June
25, 2011, LaSalle committed an aggravated sexual assault against a fellow
Airman in training on the night of her 21st birthday. LaSalle separated the
victim from her friends and took her back to the hotel room after she started
feeling ill while at the night club. When she woke up the next morning, the
victim said she felt confused and betrayed.

"Someone
that I trusted took advantage of me," she said. "If he's a friend,
then why would he do that to me? ... I felt like something wrong
happened."

With a lot
of alcohol consumption by the birthday party goers, mostly other Airmen from
their training squadron, the witness, Senior Airman Jace McCarthy from Eielson
Air Force Base, Alaska, said the events of the previous night were not 100
percent clear, but he remembered that the female Airman was upset the next
morning.

"She
didn't seem herself," McCarthy said. "I don't want to say a little
panicky, but freaked out. She said she thinks something happened in the hotel
the night before."

During the
trial, the government prosecutor, Capt. Joshua Nettinga, told the military
judge, Col. Matthew Ward, "The accused is not looking for a strong capable
partner, but a vulnerable victim."

Before
their graduation from technical school, there was another incident in question
where LaSalle forced the Airman to have sex with him, while making her keep
quiet with threats of showing nude photos of her to friends and family. Even
when the victim tried to confront him, he would get combative and only threaten
her more. When she told LaSalle to stop, he ignored her pleas.

It was
after technical training, when through a series of text messages back and
forth, LaSalle admitted to the victim that he had forced her to have sex. The
Air Force Office of Special Investigations found these text messages while
investigating LaSalle for other offenses, and prosecutor Capt. Leslie Bartow subsequently
interviewed the Airman about the potential sexual assault.

It was
during that interview that the Airman came forward for the first time with the
details of what she suffered during technical training. In explaining why she
finally reported the crime, the Airman tearfully responded, "I didn't want
to hide it anymore."

LaSalle's
first court-martial conviction in 2012 came about due to his attempts to entice
two children under the age of 18, one victim was 13 years old and the other had
just turned 16, into illegal sexual activity and for engaging in indecent
language with a child with his own 15-year old niece. LaSalle offered his niece
money if she would take photos of herself in just her underwear for him. These
crimes were all committed using text messaging and social media.

He pled
not guilty to one victim and was convicted and pled guilty to the other two
victims during the first week of November 2012. For his crimes, he was
sentenced by a military judge to a dishonorable discharge, 28 months
confinement, reduction to E-1 and a reprimand.

The Air
Force first learned of these crimes when an older sister intervened on his
communication with her little sister and then reported the incident to local
police and AFOSI, who then obtained a federal warrant and seized his
communications with the victims.

AFOSI
obtained all text communications sent from his cell phone during the time frame
of October 3-12, 2011. In those text messages, they found not only the three
underage victims for which he was prosecuted at his first trial, but also the
two victims who were the basis of his second court-martial.

During
that nine-day period, AFOSI learned that, LaSalle knowingly tried to convince
four under-age girls to engage in illegal sexual activity with him and found
evidence of a nonconsensual sexual encounter with another Airman.

At the
time he sent those text communications, LaSalle was in Pennsylvania
participating in the Recruiter's Assistance Program (RAP) following his
graduation from technical school at Ft.
Leonardwood, Mo.